Yahoo! chief Scott Thompson resigns in the wake of row over 'fake’ degree

Scott Thompson has quit as the chief executive of Yahoo! as the board gave
into a raft of complaints from Third Point, a hedge fund activist, which
included a discrepency in the internet boss’s CV.

The decision to replace Mr Thompson, who has been fighting allegations about a fake computer science degree for the past week, was made at an emergency board meeting on Sunday at which sweeping changes were made.

The decision to replace Mr Thompson, who has been fighting allegations about a fake computer science degree for the past week, was made at an emergency board meeting on Sunday at which sweeping changes were made.

The radical changes mark an extraordinary victory for Dan Loeb, the founder of Third Point, who has spent six months pushing for change at the company. Mr Loeb and two of his proposed directors will join the board from Wednesday, Yahoo! said in a statement. In return Third Point has agreed to support the election of the board’s choices.

Ross Levinsohn, the head of the company’s Americas division, was appointed as Mr Thompson’s temporary replacement. Fred Amoroso, who has recently joined the board of Yahoo!, was named as chairman.

Yahoo! has spent the past 10 days battling to contain the fallout from the disclosure that Mr Thompson could not have obtained the degree listed in his resume because the university did not start offering it until four years after he left.

Mr Loeb, who is one of America’s most aggressive hedge fund managers, has built up a 6pc stake in Yahoo!.

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Yahoo! said the discrepancy on Mr Thompson’s CV had been an “inadvertent error” and he was highly qualified for the job.

Mr Thompson, a former executive at online payments company PayPal, has been charged with turning around a company that has failed to keep pace with the growth in internet use and the popularity of social networks.